Data-dependent jitter often is present when transmitting high-speed serial signal through physical connectors. DDJ in systems can degrade data throughput in systems and degrade measurement accuracy of high-speed test and measurement equipment. To avoid the loss of accuracy in test equipment and fixtures, special calibration methodologies are required to reduce the DDJ impact.
Data-dependent jitter (DDJ) may be defined as data-dependent variations of the data transition edges relative to their ideal position in time. Causes of DDJ include non-50% duty cycles, Inter-symbol interference, non-linear phase of the transmission path, and reflections.
Non-50% duty cycle is often referred to as Duty-Cycle Distortion or DCD. The root causes include imbalance in the driver source and sink current, non-linear loads, marginal timing of output drivers, and common-mode voltage in differential signals.
Inter-symbol interference (ISI) generally results from transmission path response. Bandwidth limitation of the transmission path causes the spread of the bit energy over longer time, resulting in energy leakage into the adjacent bits. In other words, preceding bits will affect an edge transition.
Non-linear phase of the transmission path results in variable frequency dependent group delay. Since the instantaneous frequency content of a data signal varies with transition density, non-linear phase can result in edge shifts depending on the preceding bit history.
ISI for each transition depends on the preceding bit history. Typically, the effect of preceding bits sequence on a bit transition diminishes as time interval between the transition and the preceding bits increases.
Any impedance discontinuity in transmission path results in reflections. The reflected bits may affect a data transition edge, which may result in jitter. This type of jitter also depends on the preceding bits, but unlike ISI, it mainly dependent on specific bits prior to the edge transition not a combination of all preceding bits. This type of DDJ changes significantly with bit rate and/or transmission path length variations.
In many applications, ISI and short-path reflections are major DDJ sources. In such cases, it is only necessary to consider a limited number of preceding bit history to account for DDJ. This number may be referred to as “ISI depth”.
While various calibration methodologies have been developed, no methodology has emerged that generally encompasses all of the desired characteristics as hereafter presented in accordance with the present subject matter.